Father's Day
by Akili-chan
Summary: A look into the past.


_Yay! Father's day fic! It's a bit jumbled at places and I know it's not good to have someone so young cooking, but hey, it's my story and I'll have people do what I want!__  
And yes, it's sickly sweetish. But my plotbunnies wouldn't leave me alone until this was done._

Jefferson came home from work with a headache and feeling as though he needed to sleep for a week. Silently cursing all terrorists who felt a need to comment crimes over the weekends, and at times when it made it hard for Jeff to get a babysitter, the CEO unlocked his front door and peered inside expecting a blond haired child to bounce up and ask for breakfast.

It was slightly worrying to not hear a peep as Jeff knew that his adopted son was an early riser and would most likely have been planted on the couch watching ninja turtles. However, a quick check showed that no one was in the living room and Jeff begun having images of Josh in pools of blood racing though his mind.

"Josh? Josh where are you?" Jeff cursed his not wanting to wake the boy to carry over to the daycare at N-Tek, at least then he wouldn't have to go though another broken arm from an 5 am tree climbing. The sound of things being dropped in the kitchen banished most of Jeff's worries, though not all of them involving blood. Trying to put a smile on his face to greet his six year old son, the man walked into the kitchen and stopped dead in his tracks.

The place was a mess, eggs mixed with pancake batter burning on the stove; pancake mix and milk seemed to have taken over half of a wall and in the middle of it all was Josh pouring a glass of juice.

_'Deep breath' _Jeff reminded himself _'He was just hungry and this is what kids do.'_ Alright, so Jefferson was going to clean the entire place before going to bed. But it was nice to see Josh trying new things out for himself. Even it ended up with half the pans ruined and Jefferson on two hours of sleep. It was a good thing, according to all the parenting books Jefferson had read as soon as he'd gotten the kid, something to be overlooked.

"So Josh, I see you're making breakfast," Jeff boomed in as hardy of a voice as he could manage. He was slightly surprised to see Josh move to block the entire mess, though it didn't help much. "So, do you have anything planned today?"_ 'Big smile, don't make him feel bad about any of this, keep the books in mind, just keep smiling.'_

Josh mumbled something at the floor, Jeff leaning in to catch the words only got two, Father's Day.

Oh hell.

Jeff could still recall last Father's day, how his new son had point blank refused to do any craft and gotten in trouble at school, how he had found the child curled up in the closet crying as though his heart was breaking, and how much of an handful the boy had been for a couple of days after. Mother's day wasn't so bad, Josh would just mope around the house, but the wounds from Jim's death were still fresh. For a brief moment Jeff felt like sending Josh over to Dr. Klemo's house just not to deal with this added stress but waved that thought out of his head as soon as it had appeared.

"I guess we're going to be taking a trip to the store for flowers today then?" Jeff surveyed the mess and opened his mouth to ask Josh if he'd like to go to McDonald for breakfast but something in the other's eyes made Jeff quickly close his mouth and awkwardly make a move for the newspaper only to have it snatched out of his hands.

"Go to bed," Josh commanded causing Jeff to blink at him blankly. He knew that Josh hated for Jeff to be in bed longer then Josh himself was, would sometimes even poke at the older man until Jeff caved and got up. So why was Josh trying to send him away?

Can I have the paper?" Jeff finally asked but received only a shake of the head and a push towards the door. Giving in Jeff took the things off the stove (earning him a slight glare from Josh) and wondered up stairs to lay face first on his bed trying to ignore the noises of Josh down below and prayed that Josh wouldn't be playing with the stove anymore. He knew that the stove was off limits but Jeff hadn't had the energy to yell at Josh, or the willpower to on such a day.

As Jeff winced over the images of Josh with burns in the ER, he heard the boy slowly walking up the stairs. Jeff smiled faintly thinking about how it was somewhat nice to have Josh rushing up when the door opened and Josh walked in, a plate of burnt food and newspaper balanced on the cup of juice from earlier. He carefully placed it before Jeff and looked up, eyes slightly guarded.

"Err, this looks nice Josh!" Jeff said with false cheer as he tried not to gag on the burning smell and thought of what the newspaper was going to look like. Josh beamed then took a shedding flower from his pocket and placed it in the juice.

"Alison says all breakfasts to her dad have to have flowers," Josh mumbled, looking away from the CEO almost shyly.

Jeff figured that he was too old to be hugging himself or cheering loudly, so he just picked up the fork and began to dig at the wonderful meal, best meal he had ever eaten in his life, feeling for the first time that everything was going to be alright between them.


End file.
